First, the news that an editor of Waitrose magazine resigned after making very ill-advised comments via email, not simply to a friend or colleague, but to a vegan journalist who then posted the comments to Twitter. Cue predictable outrage and headlines including: “Waitrose magazine editor causes outrage after he suggests ‘killing vegans.’” In the editor’s defence, he actually suggested (apparently as a joke): “How about a series on killing vegans, one by one. Ways to trap them? How to interrogate them properly? Expose their hypocrisy? Force-feed them meat? Make them eat steak and drink red wine?” Misguided? Yes. Silly? Yes. Actually threatening death or bodily harm? No.

By contrast, a farm shop in Devon that advertised their Christmas turkeys had “murderer” and “go vegan” sprayed across their windows, and received anonymous phone calls where they were asked: “How would you like it if I cut you up and put you on the counter?” and “You should be the ones being killed because your life is worth less than that of the innocent animals which you are murdering.”

The most-common response from vegans to these threats? “That’s simply a sub-section of activists, we don’t support threats or abuse.” While I have no doubt that the average pleasant, law-abiding, non-activist vegan would not endorse or carry out such activities, it highlights an interesting double standard. Many who protest against livestock farming use photos of normal husbandry practices labelled with misleading captions – for example, that is not a captive bolt in the photo below, it’s a dehorning tool – it’s as lethal to a calf as an iPhone or cup of coffee.

Moreover, many posts on social media include information about and/or photos/video clips of bad practices or animal cruelty, often years-old or captured in other countries. When farmers point out that on their farm (or indeed, in their entire country or region), practice X does not occur and that they would never condone animal cruelty, the response is: “Some farmers do, therefore you’re all guilty.”

It’s not possible to have your milk and drink it – disclaiming responsibility for activist activities performed in the name of veganism, yet suggesting that all farmers are responsible for the bad practices demonstrated by a few bad apples, is an extreme double standard. There is no place in livestock farming for animal abuse or poor welfare and we all have a responsibility to make sure that it does not occur, yet it’s time for the same principle to be applied to activism. Can you really preach peace, love and compassion for animals while ignoring attacks on humans? I’d suggest not.

I took the photo above while travelling in South Africa last year. Whenever I’m faced with the inevitable “But we can just grow corn and soy to feed humans!” anti-livestock rhetoric (as seen in The Guardian this past week), I’m reminded of this picture. It shows tiny rural homes on the edge of a major road, upon which the majority of people walk to work, dodging the traffic as they go. The land is rocky, steep and lacks nutrients, the soil only capable of producing fibrous grasses that can’t be eaten by people. Yet, another few hundred yards down the road, we came across a goat.

For many people in low-income countries, a goat is a lifeline. A source of food that improves the nutrition and health of young children, pregnant women and elderly people. A source of income to allow children to attend school and have a future career, rather than working to support their family before the age of 10. A source of security that allows for improved mental health, female independence and cultural status. Last week I spoke at a Cheltenham Science Festival panel entitled “Should we all become vegan?” It’s easy to suggest that many of us in the developed world could eat less meat. However, the myriad benefits provided by livestock to people in low-income regions should not be foregone on the grounds of foodie ideology bestowed by those of us living in developed regions.

I’m pleased to see Prue Leith, Jenny Eclair, Bob Geldof, Jonathan Dimbleby and others lending their support to Send a Cow’s#UnheardVoices campaign. Let’s recognise livestock’s role in giving hope to those who need it most – and make those voices heard.

Well, the official numbers have been published for #Veganuary, the 2018 attempt to entice people away from meat and towards the heady delights of almond juice and bean curd. The campaign has been cited as a magnificent success by such impartial publications as Plant Based News (has that been the guest publication on Have I Got News for You yet?) with 62% of survey respondents (who were not previously vegan) stating that they intend to continue with a vegan lifestyle.

On the face of it, that does sound impressive, admittedly slightly less so given that it means 38% of participants presumably thought “Sod that Veganuary lark, I’m off for a bacon sandwich with cheesy chips.”

Yet here’s the rub. Despite the claims of success, the survey was only sent to 50% of participants. That’s slightly odd given that, presumably, the majority signed up online with a valid email address. There was then a 14% response rate to the survey. That means that overall, only 7% of peoplea who undertook Veganuary actually completed the survey.

Let’s assume that those who replied and confirmed that they were going to continue a vegan lifestyle were a random sample of the Veganuary population. This is a bit of a stretch, as anybody who’d not enjoyed Veganuary and was happily chomping down on a bacon sandwich would be considerably less motivated to reply than somebody who thought it was the best thing since sliced tofu. The stretch is underlined by the fact that 99% of respondents would recommend Veganuary to others – so basically a sub-section of happy campers. However, we’ll give it benefit of the doubt.

40% of people who completed the survey had previously identified themselves as omnivores (compared to 16% pescatarian, 33% vegetarian and 11% vegan). If we extend that statistic out to all the people who undertook Veganuary (168,500 people), then 67,400 peopleb – just less than the population of Stafford in the West Midlands – were originally omnivores. So, if the assumptions made earlier hold true, 7% of those previously-known-as-omnivores replied to the survey (4,718 peoplec) and of those, 62% aimed to stay vegan.

So 2,925d omnivores have confirmed that they will remain vegan – are the rest enjoying a cheeseburger for lunch? Who knows. However, human nature being what it is, the “converted” number may be even smaller in a few months time.

Are vegan numbers increasing? Yes. Is it a massive trend? No. A fad prevalent in westernised society? Maybe. In 2016, 17.86 million babies were born in China. That’s 48,932 born per day, many of whom will choose to emulate the western diet. So, in just one day, 15.7-fold more babies are born in a country where meat and dairy consumption are predicted to increase over coming decades, than the number people who we know have actually pledged to stay vegan (having previously been omnivorous) after Veganuary. Was Veganuary a storm in a tea cup? Yes – with milk…and a cheese sandwich on the side.

If Daisy the pig can recognise herself in a mirror, does that mean she shouldn’t be turned into bacon?

In the wake of a seriously busy #Februdairy, where activist rhetoric was thrown around like confetti at a summer wedding (my personal favourite activist claim – milking cows just promotes patriarchal societies in which females are treated like objects…), this little gem just arrived in my Twitter messages.

It’s a interesting little animation, probably aimed at giving food for thought (groan…), with the premise that if the animals that we eat for dinner (pigs, octopi, etc) are more intelligent than something that we wouldn’t eat (a human infant*), then should we be thinking twice about eating them?

There’s just one fatal flaw in this analogy – most livestock species are precocial. That means that when they’re born, they can quickly get up, feed and, if necessary, run away from predators. Not surprisingly, that can be essential for herbivorous prey animals in the wild. Animals that are not precocial are altricial – young are relatively undeveloped and helpless when born and tend to be hidden away in nests until they’ve gained maturity (e.g. mice).

Humans fall between these two extremes – gestation length is relatively long compared to other mammals, which favours increased foetal development and a higher birthweight, but human infants have smaller brains (29% of adult size compared to 40-45% in African apes) and have extremely immature motor skills. A significant amount of brain growth and development therefore occurs between birth and adulthood. Can an infant take the top off a child-proof medicine container? No. Can an adult? Absolutely. Does that mean that human infants lack intelligence? Not in the slightest. They just haven’t formed all the necessary brain and motor connections yet.

To try and compare the “intelligence” of a human infant with a fully-grown pig, octopus or sheep and draw any meaningful conclusion about whether or not we should eat the “intelligent” animal is an utterly futile comparison. Not quite apples to oranges, but close – after all, even the smartest apple can’t recognise itself in a mirror – or can it?

Two weeks ago, I sat in the audience for the Semex conference and heard two different presenters talking about the increasing market for plant-based foods and the myths, mistruths and misconceptions that abound about dairy farming. As a scientist, I know that we need five pieces of positive information to negate every piece of negative information. Lo and behold, #Februdairy was born!

It’s a simple concept, a campaign to celebrate all things that are wonderful about dairy – from cows to cheese, young farmers to yogurt.

So let’s post as many positive dairy tweets (especially those with pics and videos) as we can during February. Facebook and Instagram posts work well too. Anything that you can do to keep the campaign going would be wonderful, even it’s just occasional retweets.

If you’d like to tag your posts using #Februdairy or @Februdairy you can, but please don’t feel you need to. There are some useful guidelines about engaging on social media here, here and here. Feel free to reach out to me too if you would like any more information @Bovidiva.

Unfortunately, there are some rather vile people out there too. Please remember that we all need to support each other and that you can disengage from social media at any time. Don’t ever feel like you are alone in this (or in the industry as a whole) the Farming Community Network and the YANA Project are great resources if any of us need help or someone to talk to.

Together, lets show the world what a wonderful industry we have and celebrate dairy with #Februdairy!

I like to think that we live in a society where, as a whole, we are more tolerant than we were 50 or 100 years ago. Discriminating against people because of their race or gender is unacceptable, diversity is celebrated, and the idea of criticising somebody because of their religious beliefs is abhorrent to most of us.

Yet, over the past two weeks, I, and many of my friends and colleagues in the dairy industry, have been called rapists, murderers, liars and fakes. Total strangers have sent messages containing the most offensive swear words in the English language – and then been surprised when we don’t want to have a conversation about dairy farming with them. Just yesterday, somebody laughed about my breast cancer history – another said it was karma for eating meat and dairy products.

I would never wish cancer on anybody – the day that I was diagnosed was the worst of my life. I find it utterly abhorrent that some activists are using words like “rape” and “holocaust” to try and denigrate dairy and meat production. Trying to compare food production with these horrible crimes both dismisses and demeans the emotional and physical pain suffered by millions of people.

We should not criticise anybody’s choice of food, diet or lifestyle – it’s wonderful that we all are free to make the choices that suit our beliefs and philosophies. If you don’t eat or enjoy dairy – that’s entirely your choice and it’s great that you have alternative foods that certainly weren’t around when I was a vegan 25 years ago!

Tomorrow marks the start of #Februdairy – 28 days of positive social media posts celebrating everything to do with dairy. I shall post more details tomorrow, but please, if you enjoy dairy foods, think about posting something to celebrate our dairy farmers, the cows (plus goats and sheep!) that provide us with dairy products, and that fact that we have so many delicious milks, cheeses, yogurts, butters and ice-creams to enjoy.

In our brave new world, where questioning authority and searching for truth are championed as positive attributes, it is ironic that we tend to follow predictable behaviour patterns when faced with new information. Decisions which we consider to be impartial, or opinions that we hold about controversial issues based on evidence, balance and facts, may prove to be anything but when scrutinised further.

Take, for example, the preponderance of media articles suggesting that meat and dairy consumption are unhealthy – for us, the animals and the planet. One of the most recent, a plea from film-maker and deep-sea explorer James Cameron, plays upon three phenomena relating to decision-making – cultural cognition, bad news bias and confirmation bias.

We assume that we make impartial, balanced decisions, but we’re far more subject to bias than we may think. Graphic from Capper (2017) Cattle Practice.

Most of us aim to be like our heroes, whether they are famous based on appearance, acting ability, athletic skill or career prominence; thus we are prone to cultural cognition. If I believe that celebrity A believes that something is right/wrong and I aspire to being like this celebrity, I am more likely to adopt their message without question. The fact that a famous Hollywood film maker (and deep-sea explorer – seriously, who doesn’t aspire to be a deep-sea explorer?) has sufficient belief to write an op-ed in The Guardian claiming that we should all reduce meat and dairy consumption, therefore resonates with us far more highly than the same message from a non-famous individual.

Confirmation bias is the final layer in this anti-meat and dairy club sandwich. It’s difficult, if not impossible, to have missed media coverage of potential impacts of meat and dairy consumption on health. If we consciously (or subconsciously) absorb the message that these foods are bad, then Cameron’s claims that “eating too much meat and dairy is making us sick, greatly increasing our risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes, several major cancers (including breast, liver and prostate) and obesity” agree with our existing bias and we are likely to believe them. However, these claims do not accord with (nor are linked to) current scientific literature on dairy consumption.

This would include, for example, a meta-analysis in Breast Cancer Research and Treatment, which demonstrated a negative association between dairy consumption and breast cancer, i.e. increasing dairy product consumption may be associated with a reduced risk of breast cancer. In addition, a dose-response meta-analysis in the European Journal of Epidemiology reported neutral associations (i.e. no clear positive or negative association) between dairy product consumption and cardiovascular and all-cause mortality. Perhaps even the recent article in Nutrition Research Reviews, which concluded that recommending reduced dairy consumption in order to lower saturated fatty acid intakes (and thus the risk of type II diabetes and cardiovascular disease) would have limited, or possibly negative effects.

Ice-cream (and other dairy products) may reduce the risk of breast cancer.

When the subject under discussion is the fictional lives of blue-skinned human hybrids (as per the film Avatar, directed by Cameron), it’s perhaps easier to use imagination than rely on scientific veracity. However, having an evidence basis for claims made in media articles is increasingly important, especially when the claims are made by those who are only prominent for their excellence in other (non-scientific) areas.

In the meantime, eat, drink and be merry over the next two weeks – content in the knowledge that clotted cream with your mince pie will not have adverse health effects, and may even prevent against cancer. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

I will never criticise anybody for being vegan, vegetarian, pescetarian, flexitarian or any other diet. Always put popcorn on top of tomato soup (don’t knock it till you’ve tried it…) or fancy a pickled onion and herring cocktail for breakfast? No problem, we’re all entitled to choose the foods that suit our lifestyle.

Although I often promote dairy and meat production, I would never demand that somebody eat a steak or a cheese sandwich – it’s entirely their choice. Yet, with the rise of social media, a growing proportion of people feel entitled to criticise other’s diets, to the point where logic, science and civilised debate are lost in a rampant outpouring of emotive language and misinformation.

Having been engaged in countless online conversations with vegans, it appears that a handbook must exist, as the debate follows an identical pattern. The same inevitably tedious questions posed and claims made, often without any regard for the responses from the other side. In case you decide to argue with a vegan, I therefore present you with my updated handy flow-chart for how the conversation may go. Note that I do not intend to mock and I’m sure that there are many vegans who are both eloquent and well-informed, but, if you are vegan, perhaps consider whether you always rely on these rather asinine claims, without broadening your argument?

For example, is suggesting that we shouldn’t drink milk past-weaning because other animals do not, either upheld by science (no, it’s not) or a sensible criticism? After all, humans also wear expensive anoraks, use iPads and write books on the intricacies of rugby – should we forgo these activities because they are exclusive to homo sapiens?

It should be obvious that using overly emotive language or suggesting that farmers are guilty of obscene acts with farm animals detracts from your message. Nobody takes Boris Johnson seriously when he makes outrageous claims or shows utter disregard for cultural and social norms – why should anybody embrace a lifestyle choice where the messaging suggests that eating cheese is equivalent to drinking breastmilk or implies that artificial insemination of cattle is morally, physically and emotionally equivalent to serious sexual assault in humans?

I don’t converse with vegans in order to try and change their opinions, but to show all the others who are listening in the background that it’s possible to have congenial, polite and scientific debate on these topics without resorting to insults, foul language or suggestions that the opponent should “get their fist out of a cow’s rectum”.

I stopped engaging in a recent Twitter conversation when a vegan posted a screenshot of my Twitter bio and claimed that, as a breast cancer survivor, I was foolish to consume a “hormone cocktail” (milk). I may be biased, but using cancer, still a life sentence for far too many, as a tool for trying to promote veganism, utterly lacks the human compassion that the same person claimed should be extended to farm animals.

Let’s get real. If artificial insemination, housing cattle, removing the calf from the cow and all the other practices that are apparently abhorrent to vegans were outlawed, would those opposed to meat and dairy production on the grounds of exploitation and slaughter be appeased? No.

So, here’s the challenge to angry vegans. Blow away the smoke, mirrors and pseudo-animal welfare outrage, and ask the real question: Are you prepared to let animals be killed in order to enjoy meat? If the answer is yes, then move on, there’s nothing for you to tweet about here.

Further to yesterday’s blog post here, I was asked for my views on this article in the Telegraph by companion animal vet Pete Wedderburn. Given my propensity to use 17 words when three will do (I blame PhD training…) it was easier to blog about it than reply via Twitter.

Yet that’s where the argument gets difficult, and in the case of the Telegraph article, moves away from logic, science and economics towards anthropomorphism, emotion and the supposition that we can assess animal welfare based on human experience. If there was an emotive language quotient for the article, it went up significantly in the anti-mega-farm section.

Unpalatable (pun intended) a truth as it may be, we do not apply to the same standards to animals that we intend to eat (cows, pig, chickens) as to companion animals (it’s somewhat amusing that the Telegraph article was published within the “Pets” section), or indeed to animals that we consider to be pests (rats, mice, insects etc). Do many of us worry about the living conditions of house spiders or wasps, aside how we can kill them when they become a menace? No. Activist groups claim that this is speciesism, but I’d contend that it’s simply a factor of being human. We cannot have our bacon and eat it – if we apply the same standards to pets and farm animals (eliminating the “double standard” cited in the article) then perhaps by extension, just as we wouldn’t tuck into a steak from our pet labrador, we should cease to eat farm animals.

The ultimate irony is that, if asked, none of us would be happy to be killed and eaten. Slaughter is an inevitable truth of meat production, regardless of the conditions in which the animal is reared – if we cannot reconcile ourselves to the fact that we, as humans, would not be happy with that outcome, can we really assume that we can speak for animals’ preferences in any other circumstance?

“Animal welfare is a significant one [issue]: intensively kept farm animals never experience the open air, and never see blue skies” Being outside in the sunshine is undeniably lovely. However, we’re in the midst of the ill-named British “summer”. The rain is driving down and the Hereford cattle in the field I drove past five minutes ago were sheltering under a tree, ironically, voluntarily choosing to be in far closer quarters than cattle housed in a shed. We need to move away from the pervasive but false image of perpetual blue skies and sunshine. Would I personally wish to exist within the human equivalent of a battery cage? Of course not. Yet neither would I wish to be outside in pouring rain and cold wind. It’s all about balance. Do I know what a cow, chicken or pig prefers? No. We need further research to elucidate animal preferences and, *if* required, to amend our farming systems.

“Animal health is another concern: with thousands of animals living so closely together, the risk of rapid spread of contagious disease must be higher.” At face value – true. However, as with so many rhetorical statements, this bears further examination. The risk is higher. Not the incidence, nor the mortality or impact on the animals, the risk. We can have a significant increase in risk that still makes little difference to the likelihood of an event happening. Take, for example, the announcement that processed meat increases the risk of colon cancer by 18%. Immediate media reaction? “Bacon will totally kill you!” Actual change in relative risk for the average person? An increase from 5 people out of every 100 contracting colon cancer, to 6 people out of every 100. Using blanket statements about increased risk, without backing them with any science or relative risk metrics (i.e. the likelihood of an incident actually occurring) is meaningless, yet an effective fear-mongering tool. If any farm (regardless of size) has excellent health plans in place, employs effective veterinary supervision and treatment and has appropriate biosecurity and isolation for sick animals, there is no reason to suggest that disease X will spread unchecked. Why did the UK government mandate for poultry to be housed when the risk of avian influenza was high? Because it’s spread by contact with wild birds and poultry, in precisely the supposedly healthy conditions proposed by the Telegraph article.

The supposition that “…if something does go wrong, it can go wrong on a massive scale, affecting thousands of animals at one time” is again correct – with one significant caveat. Relative risk again comes into play – why would a ventilation system be more likely to fail on a large operation than a small operation? A risk may exist, but again, it’s the relative risk (ignored by the Telegraph article) that is more important. To use a human example, if the power supply fails to a large hospital, we would assume that they would have more back-up systems in place than in a small cottage hospital. Why should Dr Wedderburn assume that large farms do not have operating procedures and practices in place to deal with disaster situations? In the USA last year, 35,000 cattle died during a two-day snowstorm, the majority not housed, but in open fields. Being able to control the environment and feed supply is a major advantage of housed systems – assuming the worst case scenario is business as usual is misleading at best.

Animal welfare is a useful tool with which to bash specific farming operations, because it carries a certain intangibility. What does good animal welfare really mean? How is it assessed? Are healthy animals automatically “happy” or in a good welfare state? Perhaps it’s time to revisit and challenge the rhetoric. Given that high-producing livestock should, by definition, be healthy, does that mean that we can use milk or meat yield as an indicator of welfare? Not necessarily. If we have to reduce the use of critically-important antibiotics, will animal welfare suffer? Not if we use other husbandry measures to prevent the disease from occurring in the first place (see figure below). Is a cow who is genetically programmed to produce 40 kg of milk per day automatically more stressed than one who is only programmed to produce 20 kg of milk? Few people would suggest that a woman capable of producing copious quantities of breast milk is more stressed than one producing a small amount, yet we try to apply this logic to livestock.

Emotion is a far more effective tool to lead conversations about controversial issues than science – perhaps its time to take the bull by the horns and get in touch with our touchy-feely side to communicate as the activists do. Ultimately we need to reassure consumers that, as with all issues, there’s no ideal or one-size-fits-all farming system, just a million shades (sheds!) of grey.

The Advertising Standards Authority in the UK have just ruled that it’s permissible for vegan campaigners to use emotive terminology to describe dairy production, on the grounds that the claims made do represent dairy farming methods. Thus, phrases such as “mothers, still bloody from birth, searched and called frantically for their babies” are sanctioned as legitimate, despite the anthropomorphic language and lack of sound scientific evidence for loss- or grief-type emotions in dairy cows.

Excellent animal welfare should be the cornerstone of every livestock production system, including the non-tangible and therefore difficult to measure emotional side of animal welfare, yet using these types of emotive phrases does not really appear to be advancing the vegan cause. As quoted in the Times article, 540,000 people in Britain enjoy a vegan diet at present, up from 150,000 in 2006.

That’s a considerable number, approximately equal to the population of Manchester (City, not Greater Manchester) or the number of people in the UK who are aged 90+, yet as a percentage of the total British population, less than one percent (0.82% to be exact) choose a vegan diet. Is the proportion increasing? Yes. The equivalent percentage in 2006 was 0.25%, yet even at today’s figures, 99.18% of the British population are non-vegans. Are there any other situations where we would consider than less than 1% of the population to have a significant influence? Possibly not.